EARLY MORNING RAID

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1938, Page 5

EARLY MORNING RAID

AUCKLAND SERVICE STATION ROBBED OF £220 TWO MASKED MEN HOLD UP ATTENDANT ONE ARMED WITH SHOTGUN (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, August 8. Two masked men, one of whom is said to have been armed with a sawnoff shotgun, held up the night attendant of the Atta Taxi Company’s service station on the Grafton side of Upper Queen Street at about 3.45 a.m. and robbed the office safe of about £220 in cash. It is stated that they then walked out of the station and ran away with the money in a sugar attendance, Mr Frank Pickering, Newton, was not injured. Immediately the two men had gone he communicated with the police and with the manager of the taxi company, Mr F. Drumm. A police patrol car and the manager were both on the scene within a few minutes, but by then the men had disappeared, and up to a late hour tonight they had not been traced. Both men, said Mr Pickering, wore black masks which came from under their hats and extended to below their chins. He could see only their eyes. One of them had a sawn-off shotgun and the other carried a long piece of lead piping. Each seemed to be about average build, and in the excitement of the few minutes they were in the office, he was unable to notice any distinguishing feature about their dress. “I was sitting in the office with the door closed,” said Mr Pickering. “I was busy reading a book to pass the time when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it was one of the boys wanting some benzine, I pulled back the bolt on the door and opened it. UNEXPECTED VISITORS “Standing right in front of me were two men. One had a sawn-off shotgun stuck right at me and the other grasped a piece of lead piping. They backed me into- the little office and made me keep my hands up. I noticed that the gun was cocked.” The man with the shotgun told Mr Pickering that he wanted the key of the safe. Mr Pickering told them that the manager of the service station had it at his home. While the man with the shotgun still covered the attendant, the other intruder pulled open the drawer of the cash register on the bench along one wall and took out three or four £1 notes which were in it. Beneath these notes was the key of the safe. The man with the lead piping took it out and opened a small iron safe standing in the opposite corner of the office. He then took out about £l2O in silver and another £lOO in £1 and 10s notes, as well as one £5 note. Z ’ “If they had been armed with only piping or crowbars,” said Mr Pickering later, “I might have had a shot at stopping them, but in that small office the chances of taking the shotgun off the man who held it were not many.” . RETREAT EFFECTED After getting the cash from the safe the man with the piping backed out of the office and the one with the shotgun ordered Mr Pickering to following him. Still held at the point of the gun, he was marched out into the street in front of the service station. The man holding the piping had put the money, which had been in a brief bag and canvas bag, into a sugar sack, and while his companion kept Mr Pickering covered he ran off up Queen Street. After allowing him to get some distance away, the man with the shotgun then turned on his heel , and also ran away. Mr Pickering saw them turn up toward St Benedict’s Street before he went back to the office and rang the police and Mr Drumm. A milkman is also stated to have seen two men run past him into St Benedict’s Street. Until the beginning of this year Mr Pickering was an Atta driver, and he has been an attendance at the service station only since January. He was on duty by himself when he was held up. Another man who would have shared an earlier part of the night shift contracted measles on Saturday. It was stated by Mr Drumm that since the Atta Company was a co-op-erative concern, controlled by the owner-drivers themselves, the loss of £2OO would be a personal one for the men.